Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
"Journey to Bethlehem".
Engraving, copy M 140/175.
Signed and justified by hand.
Measurements: 47 x 60 cm.(print); 57 x 77 cm.(paper).

"Journey to Bethlehem" is situated within Dalí's graphic production of his mature stage, when the Freudian-rooted surrealism of his early years is transformed into a more refined language, open to the spiritual. The scene represents a caravan of figures advancing through an arid and bare landscape, evoking the biblical story of the Magi, although filtered by the artist's unmistakable imaginary.

The space is organized by means of a wide and almost cartographic perspective, with a distant horizon and a ground swept by curved lines that suggest movement and the passage of time. The presence of the horse, the hieratic figures and the minimal architectures refer to a ritualized vision of the journey, more symbolic than narrative. In the sky, the beams of light and the radiant star acquire a conceptual prominence, acting as vectors of energy and guidance, and connect the scene with Dalí's obsessions with science, light and transcendence.

Salvador Dalí i Domènech was one of the central figures of surrealism and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Trained in Madrid and linked to the surrealist group in Paris since the late 1920s, he developed a language based on the meticulous representation of dreamlike and symbolic images. Throughout his career he explored painting, sculpture, graphics and multiple disciplines, combining art, science and mysticism. Following his first solo exhibition in New York in 1934, his international projection was definitively consolidated. Most of his production is gathered in the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris) or the Dalí Universe in London.